2023 Colombian local elections: Preview
A preview of who’s who and what to expect in the 2023 Colombian local and regional elections, in five major cities and five major departments.
The 2023 Colombian local and regional elections are being held tommorow, October 29. Over 20,500 offices and seats will be elected, with over 128,000 candidates on the ballots, running for mayor, governor, municipal councils, departmental assemblies and local boards across the country.
To learn more about the structure and details of local government, please read my special page about local government in Colombia. For a general preview of these elections, please read my earlier post here.
Local elections in Colombia are very different from national elections, and each individual race is very much sui generis, influenced primarily by local issues and considerations and local candidates and political structures. Parties and coalitions’ strategies and alliances differ from town to town (even within the same department) and often confound national political orientations.
Nevertheless, national politics do influence the vote, particularly in major cities and departments, and the local elections—the only elections between national election cycles—are an early test for the presidential election less than three years away.
Political leaders and the media will be trying to read these elections as a sort of midterm test for Gustavo Petro. In 2019, President Iván Duque’s governing Centro Democrático (CD) performed poorly in the local elections, which were seen as a setback for the government. The right-wing opposition this year is trying to benefit from Petro’s unpopularity (with approval ratings in the low 30% range) and the polarized political climate to make the elections a ‘referendum’ against Petro. Parties like the CD and Cambio Radical (CR) and several major candidates have campaigned against Petro and his government’s policies. Many of Petro’s presidential rivals from last year are also on the ballots, most prominently Fico Gutiérrez, likely to return for a second time as mayor of Medellín.
Petro’s Pacto Histórico is bracing for a bad election, a combination of Petro’s unpopularity, weak candidates, internal divisions and local factors. The Pacto is unlikely to win (on its own) any major city, and only appears in contention for governorships in Cauca and Nariño.
It’s worth noting that as the Pacto Histórico is in reality a coalition of a dozen or so parties, there are only 130 ‘Pacto Histórico’ mayoral candidates (that is, candidates backed by some or all of the coalition’s parties). The coalition had huge difficulties in overcoming internal divisions and other problems in putting together lists for councils, assemblies and JALs—there are only 47 Pacto coalition lists for councils and six coalition lists for assemblies. Colombia Humana (CH), Petro’s party, has 362 mayoral candidates, alone or in coalitions, a significant increase from 2019 (201).
However, it will be harder than ever to read anything into the results (nationally) because of the uncontrolled proliferation of political parties, numerous coalitions and ‘independent’ candidates who obtained ballot access by collecting signatures. 35 legally recognized political parties were able to endorse candidates for any office, anywhere, or form coalitions with other parties, more than double the number of parties that existed in 2019.
In contrast with 2015 and 2019, the elections in the biggest cities appear rather uncompetitive, with clear favourites in Bogotá, Bucaramanga and perhaps Cartagena, and quasi-predefined winners in Medellín and Barranquilla. Upsets in those races would require abnormally large polling errors. Yet, large polling errors and surprises are not uncommon in Colombian local elections, so there are bound to be some surprises in the results.
Here’s a preview of the major contests.
Mayoral races
Bogotá
I’ve written at length about Bogotá’s mayoral election here and won’t repeat myself too much. As always, the mayoral race in the capital is the top-billing contest. This year, it comes with an added element: for the first time, a second round is to be held on November 19 if no candidate wins over 40% and a 10% margin over second.
The clear frontrunner is Carlos Fernando Galán, who finished second behind Claudia López four years ago (and previously ran in 2011). Galán is running as a centrist candidate, keeping the upbeat, conciliatory and non-confrontational tone he had in 2019. However, unlike in 2019, Galán has welcomed and accepted any and all endorsements from parties and politicians joining what he’s called the ‘Galán Express’—including traditional politicians with ‘machines’, like many Liberal and Green councillors with votes and networks. Galán says that he’s come to understand that there are ‘people with good ideas’ in every party, while repeating the old refrain that those who join him do so without negotiating anything in exchange. His critics say that it proves he’s a career politician with an ambivalent relation with traditional politicians (recalling his years in CR) and a todo vale (anything goes) style of doing politics.
Galán’s strength is his name recognition (from his own last name and his long political career) and very high favourability. His advantage in the polls has only grown through September and October, and he’s now clearly in a position to win in the first round. Recently, Galán’s supporters have been pushing to ensure a first round victory, to ‘save’ the city from the costs of organizing a second round. GAD3’s tracking polls for RCN have shown him over 40% or close to it.
Galán’s most likely rival in a second round is the Pacto’s candidate, former senator Gustavo Bolívar. Bolívar can count on the sizable left-wing base in Bogotá, but that alone is insufficient to win, and his big problem is that he’s an extremely polarizing candidate who is toxic to the right and centre, making him quasi-unelectable under current circumstances. He trails Galán by very large margins—30 points and more—in all second round polls.
Bolívar’s campaign has concentrated on consolidating and mobilizing the left (and healing wounds left over from 2019), and in his effort he’s received a helping hand from Petro and the government, in disregard of the president’s supposed political neutrality (not that any president has ever followed that). The government organized a large pro-government demonstration in Bogotá on September 27, which ended up being used in part to rally left-wing support for Bolívar (though he claimed he didn’t want that), and Petro and his cabinet have organized community events throughout the city as part of a ‘government with the people’ initiative (in reality, thinly-veiled political proselytizing). Bolívar’s opponents have loudly decried Petro’s intervention in the election
Bolívar’s campaign thinks that he has a solid base of at least 800,000 votes (slightly less than what the Pacto won in the 2022 congressional elections). The candidate says he also wants to convince undecideds, by arguing that he’s the only candidate opposed to traditional politics (unlike Petro in 2022) and now by feuding with unpopular incumbent mayor Claudia López (claiming that she wants Galán to win).
The other candidate in the top three is Juan Daniel Oviedo, the technocratic former head of the statistical agency (DANE) under Duque with no prior political experience. Competing with Galán for the centrist, liberal vote, Oviedo’s closing argument is that he’s a fresh face and serious candidate with solid, rigorous and responsible ideas, and independent of political machines and politiquería (politicking). Frustratingly for him, he’s remained stuck in third place (high teens) throughout the final months, unable to grow despite his high favourable numbers and his appeal on both the centre-left (from some claudista Greens) and centre-right (from uribismo, where he was tied politically). In the final days, he will need to fend off strategic voting that will want Galán to close to deal in the first round (he claims that it’s statistically impossible for anyone to win in the first round). Oviedo has hesitated to go negative against Galán, as it’d go against the conciliatory and positive tone he’s had, but has recently been implicitly criticizing his style of doing politics in a rather fajardista way (the means justify the ends).
The other candidates—Rodrigo Lara, Diego Molano, Jorge Luis Vargas, Jorge Enrique Robledo and two others—have remained far behind and now face the threat of strategic voting that could further squeeze their weak support.
With Galán clearly ahead, barring a major polling error, the only question left to answer here is whether he’ll win in the first round, or if he’ll need to wait until November 19. A first round defeat for Gustavo Bolívar would be a major blow to petrismo.
Medellín
In Medellín, it’s all but certain that former mayor (2016-19) and 2022 presidential candidate Federico ‘Fico’ Gutiérrez will win easily. I discuss the context and election more extensively here.
The particularly nasty and negative campaign has been polarized between Fico and (now former) mayor Daniel Quintero. Quintero resigned from office on September 30 to openly campaign for his candidate, Juan Carlos Upegui, and is seeking to build a national base for a presidential candidacy in 2026. Quintero’s administration has been polarizing and divisive, going on the warpath against uribismo and the region’s traditional business elite, breaking the model of public-private cooperation that had defined municipal governance since the early 2000s. He has been accused of politicizing and undermining public institutions and governing in alliance with traditional politicians and groups in spite of presenting himself as an independent outsider. His administration also faces serious accusations of corruption and mismanagement.
Quinterismo’s national ambitions and petrismo’s weakness in Antioquia have pushed them, since 2021, into a marriage of convenience that allowed quinterismo to elect two congressmen in 2022 on the Pacto’s lists. Juan Carlos Upegui, the candidate of Quintero’s party Independientes, is close to petrismo and the left and his campaign has received the support of nearly all factions of the Pacto. Being legally barred from participating in electoral/partisan politics as mayor, Quintero opportunistically resigned to openly campaign for Upegui, who is a longtime Quintero confidante and his wife’s cousin. Upegui has managed to consolidate himself into second, but he trails Fico by as much as 40-50 points in polls, despite seeking to build a false narrative that he has momentum.
Fico Gutiérrez left office in 2019 with high approvals (over 80%), thanks to his strengths as a retail politician, upfront style, folksy demeanor and omnipresence in public and in the media/online—which more than made up for a rather mixed record, particularly on security, his key focus. Fico finished third in last year’s presidential election, with 23.9%, victim of the anti-establishment mood and Iván Duque’s unpopularity, but still won 54% in Medellín. He has established himself as one of the main faces of the opposition to Petro, and as mayor he’s likely to often end up in fights with Petro and the national government. His campaign is a fertile mix of anti-petrismo and anti-quinterismo, under the vague aspirational promises to reunite the city and rebuild trust. Fico is supported by uribismo and most of the right/centre-right as well as the business elites (to which he has always had close ties). Given his own popularity and the general mood, Fico is the shoo-in and appears with over 60% in most polls.
A raft of other candidates, many desperately seeking to be the ‘third way’ (tercería) in a polarized field, have largely struggled to exist. Albert Corredor, an ex-uribista renegade and quinterista dissident, is third in many polls. Corredor’s candidacy is known to be supported by Quintero’s former education secretary, who is facing charges in a corruption scandal, and contract workers of the education secretariat have claimed that they’ve been forced to support his campaign under threat of being fired. In the final days, he’s refused Quintero’s demands that he withdraw to support Upegui and has turned his attacks against Quintero. Popular irreverent political commentator and academic Gilberto Tobón appeals to an anti-quinterista left and others cynical of politics, and is third or fourth in many polls.
The campaign has been very dirty and negative, with the two leading candidates constantly slinging mud at one another and helping feed a dangerous cycle of misinformation about their rivals.
Cali
Out of the four biggest cities, Cali is the only city where the election doesn’t appear to be already decided. In the capital of the Valle del Cauca, the election is a dead heat between Roberto ‘El Chontico’ Ortíz, a self-made lottery businessman, and Alejandro Éder, the scion of one of the wealthiest families of the Valle.
Roberto ‘El Chontico’ Ortíz is hoping that the third time will be the charm: he finished second in both 2015 and 2019. ‘El Chontico’, as he’s commonly known, is a self-made businessman who got rich and popular with his lottery business, who claims that he’s used his fortune to give back to those in need, through a charitable foundation. He jumped into politics in 2010, serving one term in the House (2010-14). His background and charitable activities have made him popular among lower-income voters, his main electoral base. Ortíz is a populist with no clear ideology: in 2015, he was supported by the Liberal Party, while in 2019, he appeared as the right-wing candidate, supported by uribismo. Having calculated that uribismo’s support was a liability in 2019, he’s now keeping a safe distance from the right and is co-endorsed by the Liberal Party. He’s campaigned as a populist—particularly against his main rival.
Ortíz was the frontrunner but Alejandro Éder has successfully eaten into his lead. Éder is the scion of one of the region’s wealthiest families, owners of Manuelita, an agroindustrial corporation (most famous in the sugar industry). Éder was senior presidential advisor for reintegration during Juan Manuel Santos’ first term (2010-2014), and also participated in the Havana peace talks with the FARC for two years. Outside of government, in 2015 he became director of ProPacífico, a private non-profit that supports development projects in the region. In 2019, Éder ran for mayor as the fajardista candidate, finishing third with 17%.
This year, Éder’s strategy is different: from fajardismo’s no todo vale (not everything goes) he’s gone to ‘everyone’s welcome’, allying with traditional politicians and received the endorsements of Nuevo Liberalismo, Colombia Renaciente, CR and the Conservatives as well as the backing of some uribistas (former senator Gabriel Velasco). His candidacy gathered momentum with the support of other candidates: Diana Rojas, a former councillor running as an ‘anti-political machines’ independent, was pushed by her economic backers (led by former mayor and prominent businessman Maurice Armitage) to withdraw and ally with Éder in late September (she was third in the polls), and most recently Duque’s former justice minister Wilson Ruiz also joined him. Éder is supported by Cali’s traditional business elites, who have been influential in local elections (Rodrigo Guerrero in 2011 and Armitage in 2015 were close to the local business elites).
Against a threatening Éder, Ortíz has turned to populist class warfare: he has attacked Éder as a ‘rich kid’ who inherited everything, detached from the social realities (who was in Miami during the very violent estallido social in 2021) and supported by the ‘upper classes’ . Both Ortíz and Éder have traded accusations of being the ‘continuity’ of incumbent mayor Jorge Iván Ospina (petrista Green), the most unpopular big-city mayor in the country facing several corruption scandals and a record characterized by woeful mismanagement. Éder has said that Ospina is the continuity candidate, a claim which Ortíz says is preposterous because he was a city councillor in opposition to Ospina for four years (although he now takes credit for new investigations against Ospina, in reality he was a rather invisible councillor) while faulting Éder for not dropping out in 2019. Ortíz is backed by much of the political class that was behind Ospina in 2019. While the Partido de la U’s Dilian Francisca Toro, the frontrunner in the gubernatorial race, won’t endorse anyone, most of her machine is behind Ortíz.
Two other candidates stand out from the rest of the field. Miyerlandi Torres, a bacteriologist, was Ospina’s health secretary during the pandemic and is Dilian Francisca Toro’s cousin. Not supported by Dilian and denying claims that she’s supported by Ospina, Torres plays on her experience managing the pandemic and sells herself as the only independent woman in the race.
The Pacto’s candidate is Danis Rentería, a retired soldier and Ospina’s former peace secretary, who four years ago was the mayoral candidate of the Christian right party Colombia Justa Libres. Rentería’s candidacy divided the Pacto because of his political past on the right and with traditional politicians (he was city councillor in 2012-15 for the MIO, the party of convicted parapolítico Juan Carlos Martínez), as well as his ties to the unpopular Ospina administration. One of the Pacto’s main leaders in the Valle, Polo leader and senator Alexander López, has been conspicuously silent about the election, leading to suspicions that his sympathies are with Ortíz. Rentería plays up his ties to Petro and claims that he has Petro’s full trust—recently, his party scolded him for using a (rather convincing) fake simulated voice of the president in a campaign video. Petro won 53.4% of the vote in the first round in Cali in 2022, but a lot of the left’s typical base in low-income areas is behind Ortíz. In addition, two minor left-wing candidates challenge the Pacto: father Édilson Huérfano (Fuerza Ciudadana), a former Anglican priest turned Twitter political commentator, and Deninson Mendoza, the candidate of Daniel Quintero’s Independientes (he was manager of Telemedellín, Medellín’s public TV channel).
All candidates have made security one of their top issues: Cali has the highest homicide rate of all major cities in Colombia (38 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2022) and often ranks among the 50 most violent cities in the world. Éder says he’s a security expert, while Ortíz promises drones, armoured cars and ‘cutting-edge technology’.
Polls paint a confusing picture: some show Ortíz with a consistent but narrow lead, others have had Éder leading. After two failed attempts, will Ortíz be able to close his campaign victoriously?
Barranquilla
With no suspense, Alejandro ‘Álex’ Char (Cambio Radical) is guaranteed a third non-consecutive term as mayor, after 2008-2011 and 2016-2019, which will seal five consecutive terms for charismo at the helm of Barranquilla. The Char family reigns hegemonic in Barranquilla and leads one of the most powerful political and economic empires in Colombia. In addition to their political machine, the family’s business conglomerate, Olímpica, owns supermarkets, department stores, pharmacies, a radio stations, a bank and perhaps most importantly, Barranquilla’s beloved Junior football club. Despite setbacks in 2022 and major scandals, courtesy of Alex’s ex-lover Aída Merlano, Char remains extremely popular high in Barranquilla.
Charismo has controlled Barranquilla since 2007, under Alex Char (2008-2011, 2016-2019) and two allies, Elsa Noguera (2012-2015) and Jaime Pumarejo (2020-2023). After years of crisis, mismanagement, corruption and criminal co-governance, Char is credited for the so-called ‘Barranquilla miracle’ (milagro barranquillero). As mayor, Char was the most popular mayor in the country, with approval ratings consistently above 85-90% and leaving office in 2019 with 95% approval. Charista administrations improved the city’s finance (from being essentially bankrupt) and undertook big infrastructure projects that transformed the face of the city—the acclaimed Malecón del Río along the Magdalena river, education and healthcare infrastructure, new parks and a huge program to pave streets and canalize streams to prevent flooding. Char has carefully constructed an image as a congenial, charismatic man of the people, always seen wearing his trademark worn threadbare hat and proudly proclaiming his distaste of formal settings. An image which has been driven home thanks to costly publicity campaigns and close ties to the friendly, uncritical local media.
As has become increasingly clear in the past few years, the miracle has a dark, hidden face: a lack of opposition, no checks and balances, hegemonic control over nearly all local institutions, traditional political practices (clientelism, vote buying) and big contracts given out to a select few mega-contractors with friendly ties to the Char (like the Daes brothers, owners of a Nasdaq-listed company, with past ties to drug trafficking in the 90s). The Char family has been implicated in several scandals over the years, most recently the ongoing Aída Merlano vote buying scandal. Merlano, a congresswoman elected senator in 2018 (who had a brief affair with Alex Char), was convicted of vote buying in 2019 before escaping from prison. Her revelations against her former allies have been extremely damaging to their national image. In September 2023, former senator Arturo Char, Alex’s brother, was arrested and faces an investigation in the Supreme Court for vote buying (via Aída Merlano). Following his resignation from the Senate earlier this year, there is no Char family member in the Senate for the first time since 1991.
The Char clan suffered some losses in 2022 and Alex’s bizarre zero-effort presidential candidacy in 2022 (he finished second in the right-wing primary with 17.7%) led to negative national exposure. While their image in Bogotá is very degraded, they remain very popular in Barranquilla—Alex Char won nearly 200,000 votes in the city in the right-wing primary last year (88%).
Char will sail comfortably to a third term, after a very low-key campaign: his candidacy was announced by the clan’s patriarch, Fuad Char, followed by Char going on vacation to Europe, and since then he’s not attended debates and only given one interview. Like in 2015, he faces only token opposition, and the other traditional parties (Liberal, Conservative, La U and uribismo) have no candidate of their own.
In the wake of Petro’s landslide victory in the city in 2022, petrismo had big ambitions to conquer Barranquilla. However, infighting, the lack of strong candidates and finally the Nicolás Petro scandal sealed the left’s fate. Moreover, the local left remains discredited by the corrupt and disastrous administrations of father Bernardo ‘el Cura’ Hoyos’ left-wing populist Movimiento Ciudadano in the 1990s and early 2000s. Since 2007, the left’s candidates against Alex Char have all had political roots in ‘el Cura’ Hoyos’ movement. As in 2019, the ‘strongest’ opposition candidate is the Polo’s councillor Antonio Bohórquez, who is supported by most of the Pacto. In 2019, Bohórquez finished a distant second with 66,000 votes, or 13.4%. The four other candidates behind him are even weaker and less experienced, highlighting the lack of new political alternatives to charismo.
Char won 350,000 votes in 2015 (73%) and his successor Jaime Pumarejo won 309,000 votes in 2019 (62%). Char has over 70% in the polls. Will he break his own record from 2015?
Bucaramanga
In the capital of Santander, evangelical pastor Jaime Andrés Beltrán, known as the ‘Bukele bumangués’, is the clear favourite.
Beltrán is an evangelical pastor (his family has their own church) and three-term councillor who has spent the past eight years trying to be mayor. Beltrán has been in politics since 2011, when he was elected to city council for the Liberal Party. He unsuccessfully sought the Liberals’ mayoral nomination in 2015, and four years ago, as Colombia Justa Libres’ candidate, he finished second with 14% and 40,600 votes (which gave him a seat in council ex officio). This year, against rising criminality in the city, he’s gained popularity with his hardline security promises and anti-immigrant rhetoric, proclaiming himself as an admirer of Nayib Bukele. In 2022, as councillor, he promoted paloterapía (stick therapy), or vigilante justice, against criminals. This year, he promises to militarize parts of the city, new detention centres, facial recognition cameras and drones. Denounced as one of the more xenophobic candidates in these elections, Beltrán has talked about an ‘immigration problem’ and said Venezuelans are ‘more aggressive’ criminals. Under his ‘padlock plan’, Beltrán has proposed to close the city to immigrants or set up immigration checkpoints at entrances to the city, which would obviously be illegal and unconstitutional.
Beltrán vows that he’s independent from the political class, but as a Liberal councillor he was known to manage bureaucratic ‘quotas’ thanks his alliances with Liberal politicians, and today his campaign is supported by parts of the Aguilar clan (led by convicted parapolítico Hugo Aguilar and his sons, Mauricio and Richard, both with judicial problems for corruption), specifically by Hugo Aguiloar. Mauricio Aguilar called him out as an hypocrite for having sought his family’s support and later denying ties to them. Beltrán’s candidacy is co-endorsed by CJL, La U, Salvación Nacional and MIRA and has received the support uribismo (led locally by rep. Óscar Villamizar, son of former senator Alirio Villamizar, convicted in a corruption scandal during the Uribe administration). Beltrán has kept a large and growing lead in the polls.
Also working in Beltrán’s favour is that none of his rivals have managed to break out, and three candidates appear tied for second: Horacio José Serpa, Fabián Oviedo and Carlos Parra. Lagging not too far behind them are Consuelo Ordóñez and Jaime Calderón.
Serpa, a former Liberal senator (2018-2022), is the son of the late Horacio Serpa, a leading santandereano Liberal politician (former governor and senator) and three-time presidential candidate. Unlike his father, however, Serpa’s entire political career to date had been in Bogotá, and he’s faced criticisms from his rivals for being a carpetbagger and knowing the city enough.
Fabián Oviedo, running as an independent, is a former two-term (2016-22) CR city councillor and former president of the municipal council in 2021 who was close to unpopular outgoing mayor Juan Carlos Cárdenas. While he attacks Beltrán for being surrounded by politiquería, he’s said to be implicitly supported by former governor Richard Aguilar (awaiting trial for corruption) and by mayor Juan Carlos Cárdenas (his family’s business has ties to a group that received a large contract from the city).
Carlos Parra, a former opposition councillor (2020-2023) is the candidate of the Greens and Dignidad y Compromiso, supported by rep. Cristian Avendaño and nationally by senator Angélica Lozano. As councillor, Parra criticized Cárdenas for alleged corruption and recently denounced the mayor to the Fiscalía for corruption in contracts worth 130 billion pesos. Parra campaigns against the ‘political clans’.
Consuelo Ordóñez is supported by Nuevo Liberalismo and Rodolfo Hernández’s Liga. She has held public office in Santander, Bucaramanga and the Procuraduría thanks to her ties to the Liberal Party, and recently worked for the city of Bogotá. Unable to obtain the Liberal nomination, she got on the ballot by collecting signatures. She received the support of Rodolfo Hernández’s party despite having very critical of him when he was mayor. However, Rodolfo hasn’t publicly campaigned with her much.
Jaime Calderón, a surgeon and former newspaper columnist, is the Pacto’s candidate. He has been absent from politics for over 20 years and has never worked in government.
The field of candidates is rounded out by several minor candidates, including Carlos Sotomonte (a left-leaning environmental activist who supported and worked for Cárdenas’ administration), Ludwing Mantilla (a perennial candidate running for Carlos Caicedo’s Fuerza Ciudadana), Luis Roberto Ordóñez (a controversial businessman) and Jorge Alberto Figueroa (former member of Rodolfo’s cabinet, uribista dissident).
Cartagena
The favourite in La Heroica is former governor Dumek Turbay, who has a sizable and consistent lead in the polls over his rivals, but a surprise can’t be ruled out. Four years ago, the story of the election in Cartagena was the completely unexpected victory of an anti-corruption outsider, William Dau, who harangued the traditional political clans that have historically dominated local politics. The popular tourist destination has been plagued by years of misgovernment, political instability (seven mayors in ten years) and corruption, often (somewhat unfairly) cast in a negative light as the chaotic mess against the shining, miraculous Barranquilla.
Dau is unpopular, seen as ineffective. The foul-mouthed mayor spent most of his term picking fights, mostly against the council and the political clans, often referring to his critics and enemies with various invectives (his favourite being malándrines, or scoundrels). With his focus being on ‘ending corruption’ and ‘clean up public administration’, Dau has been criticized for being ineffective, having difficulties executing big infrastructure projects and will leave behind few major infrastructure projects of the sort that cartageneros urgently need.
Dumek Turbay is the former Liberal governor of Bolívar (2016-2019), and during his administration he co-governed with the dominant political clans of the departments (implicated in various corruption scandals and parapolítica), as confirmed in scandalous leaked 2019 audio recordings from Vicente Blel Saad (former senator, convicted parapolítico). This year, he registered his candidacy with the support of centrist parties with less baggage: Nuevo Liberalismo, En Marcha and the new Partido Democráta. Since then, he’s collected the support of much of the political class—reconciling with his cousin, powerful Liberal senator Lidio García Turbay, the Montes clan, the Blel clan and several incumbent councillors. This opens him to attacks from his rivals that he’s supported by the corrupt political clans—Dau, Dumek’s arch-nemesis, sarcastically shared a post on Instagram that twists Dumek’s slogans to ‘Dumek the one who steals, united to steal’. Playing on his experience and his ability to execute big projects, he promises several megaobras (big infrastructure projects).
His strongest rivals are William García Tirado, who finished second in 2019, former mayor (2008-2011) Judith Pinedo and the Pacto’s candidate Javier Julio Bejarano.
García is a career politician, a former three-term councillor and representative, who faces disciplinary investigations from his time as head of the social housing fund during Manolo Duque’s administration (2016-2017). In 2019, García was the favourite, with the support of much of the political class, but unexpectedly lost to Dau by about 10,900 votes. Blaming them for his defeat four years ago, García now rejects machines’ support and says that he regrets allying with the political clans in 2019. On the ballot as an independent (through signatures), he’s now running a populist campaign, his landmark promise being a 200,000 pesos food voucher redeemable in supermarkets targeted at the 46% of families who consume less than three meals a day.
Judith Pinedo, popularly known as “La Mariamulata”, was mayor from 2008 to 2011. In 2007, running as an independent and supported by dissatisfied businessmen, intellectuals and civic leaders, her victory was first major upset to the power of the dominant corrupt political clans. Her administration was fairly effective, with significant achievements in healthcare, education and poverty, and as a symbol of decency and honesty in politics. Her political enemies, however, persecuted her for years on trumped-up charges, accused of selling a public beach to a hotel. After being wrongfully convicted and incarcerated for two years, the Supreme Court finally acquitted her in March 2023, resuscitating her political career. She launched her candidacy with her own independent movement, and the co-endorsement of the Greens. Her campaign recalls the achievements of her administration and the ideas of decency and honesty in politics. When she was released from prison, Dau warmly embraced her and said that it would be a ‘big mistake’ if she didn’t run. Using this implicit gesture and claims that several members of Dau’s cabinet are close to her, Pinedo’s opponents have claimed that she’s Dau’s candidate, largely exaggerating the extent of the ties between her and the mayor. Nevertheless, local contractors from a social program have publicly supported her (which isn’t illegal), fueling criticism from her rivals. Pinedo has tried to distance herself from Dau, saying that it’s very disrespectful to claim that she’s his ‘quota’ given that her political career began years before his election.
Pinedo faces competition for the ‘alternative’ vote from the Pacto’s candidate Javier Julio Bejarano, who has been gaining ground in the polls despite a rather traumatizing and divisive nomination process. Bejarano is a city councillor since 2019 and was initially one of the only pro-Dau councillors, but he quickly broke with him and became one of the most vocal opposition councillors—which led to several public clashes with Dau, who called him a ‘great SOB’ and ‘gossiping old lady’ (a judge later ordered the mayor not to insult him). He’s aggressively attacked Dumek Turbay, calling him ‘Robek’ and constantly questioning him during debates over his judicial investigations (claiming that he has 40 open investigations).
Jacqueline Perea, the candidate of former president Pastrana’s Nueva Fuerza Democrática, made a mark on the campaign by digging up dirt on Pinedo and Dau. Without holding elected office, she was a vocal opponent of the outgoing administration for four years. Although presenting herself as independent, she’s been criticized for working in the administration of Manolo Duque (facing criminal and disciplinary charges) and her 2018 congressional candidacy in alliance with Andrés García Zuccardi (son of the late corrupt cacique Juan José García).
Dumek Turbay has had a double-digit lead in polls, but his opponents, after 2019, don’t trust the polls at all.
Gubernatorial races
Antioquia
In Antioquia, in an open race with a divided field, the man to beat is former governor (2016-2019) Luis Pérez. Behind him, Andrés Julián Rendón, the uribista candidate, aims to coalesce a divided anti-petrista right behind him.
Luis Pérez is a controversial traditional politician who has been in politics for over three decades, with a great talent to remain politically relevant. He served as mayor of Medellín (2000-2003), a tenure marked by several big infrastructure projects but also a bad relation with the media and several accusations of corruption and financial mismanagement. As mayor, in 2002, he also supported operation Orion, a military operation against the guerrilla’s urban militias in Comuna 13 at the cost of human rights violations, forced disappearances, forced displacement and the strengthening of paramilitary groups. After unsuccessful mayoral candidacies in Medellín in 2007 and 2011, Luis Pérez was elected governor of Antioquia in 2015 with most of the political class behind him. He left office with high approval ratings. He ran for president in 2022, stirred up tensions on the left by attempting to join the Pacto primary, and ultimately ended up withdrawing before the end to support Petro—another sign of his ability to remain politically relevant and opportunistically support winners (he previously supported Uribe and Santos). Until recently, Pérez was also a close ally of Daniel Quintero.
Pérez is also controversial because of the company he keeps and various murky business dealings. He was among the politicians mentioned by ‘Otoniel’ (former leader of the Clan del Golfo) for having held meetings with him and other members of the criminal organization. In 2022, the Fiscalía seized four properties belonging to Pérez which are presumed to be connected to former paramilitary commander Vicente Castaño.
This year, Pérez is running with the support of the ostensibly centrist Alianza Social Independiente (ASI), co-endorsed by several smaller parties. He later gained the support of Cambio Radical (CR), despite Germán Vargas Lleras publicly disavowing the endorsement. His campaign was initially more modest that previous ones, but closed with a bang: Julián Bedoya, whose candidacy never took off, dropped out and endorsed him on October 23, bringing with him his dissident Liberal faction as well as senator Carlos Andrés Trujillo’s Conservative faction. Bedoya, a former Liberal senator and traditional clientelistic politician who supported Petro in 2022, was denied the Liberal nomination by party boss César Gaviria (punishment for defying Gaviria’s orders and supporting the government) but obtained a last-minute endorsement from the Partido Democráta. Bedoya controls a strong machine with power in Urabá, the Lower Cauca and suburban Medellín.
To fend off his right-wing rivals’ criticism about his ties to Petro and Quintero, Pérez has said that he’s neither petrista nor uribista, neither far-right nor far-left but ‘progressive’, and he has criticized Petro more directly, accusing him of being ‘hostile’ to Antioquia. His eternal slogan is piensa en grande (think big) and, as always, he promises the sort of big projects he likes to take credit for (often without finishing them).
Against Pérez, the anti-petrista right is divided, after repeated attempts at consolidating a common candidacy failed. There are three main right-wing candidates remaining (down from five at the beginning): uribismo’s Andrés Julián Rendón, the former mayor of Rionegro (2016-2019); Luis Fernando Suárez, the candidate of incumbent governor Aníbal Gaviria and Mauricio Tobón.
Rendón is the strongest of these candidates, with the best chances of victory. Although Antioquia is the cradle and heartland of uribismo, the CD lost the last two gubernatorial elections. Determined not to repeat the mistakes of the past two elections (not allying with other parties), Rendón’s candidacy has gained strength with the support of official Liberal candidate Eugenio Prieto (who withdrew in his favour and brings two Liberal factions with him), La U but most importantly an endorsement from Fico Gutiérrez, his key asset. Rendón, however, has been unable to ally with Luis Fernando Suárez, the candidate of incumbent governor Gaviria. Suárez, a longtime ally of Gaviria’s political group, was the second-ranking official in the administration and served as caretaker governor over several months in 2020 and 2021 while Aníbal Gaviria was twice under house arrest for alleged contract irregularities during his first gubernatorial term in 2005. Suárez and Rendón never reached an agreement on an alliance and the campaign closed on a very acrimonious note between the two. At the last minute, on October 26, Suárez sealed an alliance with the Conservative candidate, former senator Juan Diego Gómez, which Rendón called an ‘ambush’ and an ‘attack of hyenas’ that will favour Pérez.
Going alone until the end is Mauricio Tobón, a politician who has had many different colours—fajardista councillor, uribista, Pérez administration official and Pérez’s preferred candidate in 2019 (he finished third with 9%). This year he’s running as an independent with the slogan Antioquia Federal, a promise that would be impossible to keep barring a major constitutional reform (but which plays to conservative paisa regionalism and right-wing resentment against Petro). His campaign copied Donald Trump’s campaign logo and used the slogan Antioquia grande otra vez (Antioquia great again). Tobón has been called xenophobic for campaigning against ‘Venezuelan delinquents’.
The quinterista-petrista candidate is Esteban Restrepo, who was Quintero’s secretary of government for the first half of his administration (managing bureaucratic quotas for political allies) and then the Antioquian intermediary in Petro’s presidential transition last year. Restrepo has close ties to the Pacto and successfully wooed much of the Pacto to support him. His campaign has concentrated in attacking Luis Pérez, an ally-turned-rival of quinterismo, calling him the symbol of old politics and criticizing him for his past uribista sympathies or Operation Orion. Restrepo proclaims himself as the only ‘independent, alternative’ candidate. Restrepo is stronger candidate than Juan Carlos Upegui in Medellín and is more competitive in a more open race, but still has few chances of winning.
The polls have been confusing and inconsistent, with many dubious pollsters and some wildly differing results. Pérez is confident, with the stated target of winning 1 million votes (which is extremely ambitious). Will uribismo finally win the governorship of Antioquia on the back of anti-petrismo/quinterismo, or will Pérez’s name recognition and machine support prevail?
Valle del Cauca
In the Valle, former governor Dilian Francisca Toro is the clear favourite to win a second term as governor, particularly as her main rival has been declared ineligible (but remains on the ballot).
Dilian Francisca Toro, former governor (2016-2019), former senator (2002-2014) and leader of the Partido de la U until a few months ago, has been in politics since the 1980s and leads one of the most powerful political clans in Colombia—with five seats in Congress, the governorship since 2016, a dozen mayors and many councillors and deputies. From her decades in politics, she has skeletons and lots of baggage (immense bureaucratic power in the healthcare sector earning her the nickname ‘baroness of health’, closed cases for money laundering and parapolítica) which has hurt her image in public opinion. An able political operator, she’s successively supported Uribe, Santos, Duque and (until earlier this year) Petro. Her candidacy is co-endorsed by six other parties besides La U, including the Liberals and Conservatives but also the left-wing indigenous party MAIS which is part of the Pacto.
Toro is powerful but not hegemonic in the Valle. In 2015, she won by ‘only’ ten points (and 35%), although in 2019, her anointed successor, Clara Luz Roldán, won with 56.5%. However, Tulio Gómez, her strongest rival—the only one who could seriously challenge her, according to the polls—was declared ineligible and his candidacy revoked by the CNE. Tulio Gómez is a businessman and the main shareholder of the América de Cali football club, with no prior political experience. Endorsed by Juan Fernando Cristo’s En Marcha and the Greens, and without any clear ideology, he built a catch-all anti-Dilian coalition, supported by CR senator Carlos Fernando Motoa, ex-Toro ally and former senator José Ritter López and Green representative Duvalier Sánchez. However, in late September, the CNE revoked his candidacy, ruling that he was ineligible for having signed a contract with the city of Cali less than a year before the election. Despite ever-dwindling chances of salvaging his candidacy, he challenged the decision until finally, on October 26, the Council of State dealt the final blow, confirming his ineligibility. With only days left to go, he now calls on their supporters to cast a blank vote—recognized as valid votes, if the blank vote were to win, the election would have to be repeated. The blank vote has never won in a gubernatorial election and it will be very difficult to pass on the message to his potential voters in the very final moments.
Some of his voters may now vote for the other candidates who had struggled to make their presence felt: Fernez Lozano (Pacto), former mayor of Yumbo; Santiago Castro (CD), a former four-term Conservative representative (1994-2010) and business leader; and Óscar Gamboa (Dignidad y Compromiso), a two-time gubernatorial candidate (2015, 2019) and former minister-counselor at the embassy in the US (2021-2022). All of them have decried Tulio Gómez’s last-minute decision to support the blank vote as irresponsible and only helping Toro.
The confusing chaos only ensures that Dilian Francisca Toro will win. What is worth watching is whether she’ll win a big, convincing victory or an unimpressive, quasi-Pyrrhic victory against divided opposition.
Atlántico
More unpredictable than Barranquilla, the gubernatorial race in Atlántico is a rematch of eight years ago, between former charista Liberal governor Eduardo Verano and rival Alfredo Varela.
Eduardo Verano is a veteran Liberal politician and former two-term governor (2008-2011, 2016-2019). Although he is not part of the Char machine and has his own political career (he’s even twice launched futile presidential candidacies in 2014 and 2022), he has been functional to their interests. His second candidacy in 2015 was supported by charismo, and he gave them control over the most important portfolios in his administration. In a repeat of 2015, Verano is once again running in tandem with Alex Char. In late September, the Char clan, led by the patriarch Fuad Char, officialized their support for Verano. Fuad Char has needed to put his troops in order, ordering his allies and associates to support Verano because some (like the structure of charista CR senator Antonio Zabaraín) had publicly been with his rival. Verano has the support of most of the department’s leading politicians and machines: Liberal senator Mauricio Gómez, Conservative senator Efraín ‘Fincho’ Cepeda, CD senator Carlos Meisel, La U senator José David Name (the much weakened Name clan were the traditional rivals of the Chars), the Ashton clan (led by former senator Álvaro Ashton, now before the JEP for parapolítica), ‘el Cura’ Hoyos’ Movimiento Ciudadano and the Torres clan (now nationally infamous for their role in the possible illegal financing of the Petro campaign).
Like in 2015, Verano faces Alfredo Varela. In 2015, Verano defeated Varela by just over 6,800 votes. Varela, a reality TV show winner, was a CR councillor in Barranquilla (2008-2015) and former Char ally. In 2015, his gubernatorial candidacy was supported the Greens and La U as well as Aída Merlano, of later fame. He was later director of Cormagdalena (environmental authority for the Magdalena river), and has an open case in the Contraloría for losing money in a failed PPP. Locally, Varela’s family has been accused of running a motorcycle impoundment ‘racket’, but he says he has nothing to do with the business besides family ties. Varela is endorsed by the Greens, En Marcha and Colombia Renaciente and has the support of much of the Pacto, notably Pacto rep. Agmeth Escaf (his son’s godfather), although Varela has sought to distance himself from the Pacto to avoid being identified as Petro’s candidate. He is also supported by smaller political machines, including the Barraza clan, the Crissien clan as well as corrupt former senator Eduardo Pulgar (sentenced to 58 months in jail for trying to bribe a judge).
Petrismo in Atlántico is still reeling from infighting and the Nicolás Petro scandal—Petro’s son finished second in the 2019 gubernatorial election, behind charista candidate Elsa Noguera. The scandal brought down Nicolás Petro’s candidate, Máximo Noriega, who was also implicated in the scandal. Noriega’s wife Claudia Verónica Patiño is the candidate of Fuerza Ciudadana after she was denied the Pacto’s nomination.
Much more competitive than Barranquilla’s mayoral election, the gubernatorial election in Atlántico will be a test of the Char clan’s power. A Verano victory, like in 2015, would be confirmation that their power remains intact, but a Varela victory would be a sign that there may be cracks in their edifice.
Santander
It was widely assumed that former presidential candidate Rodolfo Hernández would be the favourite in Santander, but a very weak campaign and confusion over his candidacy’s ineligibility means that the favourite is now retired Major General Juvenal Díaz Mateus.
Rodolfo Hernández resigned his seat in the Senate (which he held by virtue of finishing second in the presidential election) to run for governor of Santander, a scenario of much greater interest to him than national politics (and legislatures). However, Rodolfo has lost of a lot of his aura and grassroots support after his bizarre 2022 runoff campaign, his controversial post-election embrace with Petro, resigning from the Senate within months and for failing to be a strong opponent to Petro. Many of the right-wing voters who supported him in 2022 have felt disappointed and betrayed by Rodolfo, to the point where many believe that Rodolfo never wanted to win and self-sabotaged his own campaign to lose. Yet, given that Rodolfo won 73% of the vote in his native Santander in the runoff, he was still seen as the candidate to beat. He returned to his familiar old blunt anti-politics and anti-corruption rhetoric against the politiqueros and the political clans of Santander (his old enemies), saying that politicians don’t know how to do anything except to steal, mixed with silly TikTok videos.
As was foreseen, in late September the CNE said that he was ineligible because of disciplinary sanctions against him by the Procuraduría and revoked his candidacy. Petro, who has long opposed the Procuraduría’s power to sanction public officials with loss of political rights, criticized the CNE’s decision in Rodolfo’s case. Rodolfo vowed not to surrender, and has challenged the decision, requesting an injunction from the IACHR (the same path Petro followed in 2014 to be reinstated as mayor of Bogotá). His other legal challenges to the decision have all been unsuccessful. He has also alleged that a CNE employee was trying to extort him, asking for money in exchange for not revoking his candidacy. His name will still be on the ballot.
In addition to his ineligibility, Rodolfo has also faced a recently discovered colon cancer that has kept him from campaigning over the past few months. After undergoing surgery, he suffered complications from peritonitis which forced him to stay two weeks in the ICU in Bogotá.
With Rodolfo so weakened, the new favourite is retired Maj. Gen. Juvenal Díaz Mateus. After serving 35 years in the army, rising up to be commander of the seventh army division, he was among the generals ‘purged’ by Petro in August 2022. He sells himself as a conservative anti-Petro ‘outsider’ and has called Rodolfo a ‘traitor’ for ‘betraying’ his voters after the 2022 election, appealing to the right-wing electorate. He’s also focused his campaign message on security. Although he has never held elected office (or was even allowed to vote until this year because he was in active service), he comes from a political family: he’s the brother of former Conservative senator Iván Díaz Mateus, convicted in the Yidispolítica scandal (accused of pressuring a congresswoman to vote for the 2004 constitutional reform that allowed Álvaro Uribe to seek a second term, in exchange for various perks), and his other brother, Luis Eduardo Díaz Mateus, is a Conservative representative since 2022.
Juvenal Díaz registered his candidacy with his own movement (collecting over 200,000 signatures) and is co-endorsed by the Conservatives (managed by his own family in Santander), Liberals, CR, uribismo and Salvación Nacional. Although Juvenal Díaz has loudly denied being supported by the Aguilar family (who are supporting another candidate), in 2022 his brother Luis Eduardo ran in tandem with the Aguilars’ senatorial candidate (who went under the Conservative label).
The other strong candidate with machine backing is Héctor Mantilla, the former mayor of Floridablanca (2016-2019) in suburban Bucaramanga. At the time, at the age of 21, he was the youngest mayor in Colombia. He comes from a political family (his grandfather, father and uncle all held elected office) and was the protégé of former Vice President Marta Lucía Ramírez. He had several scandals and controversies from his term as mayor, and has disciplinary investigations for contract irregularities and potential payment of bribes to municipal councillors. He unsuccessfully ran for the House as a Conservative last year but lost and went on to support Petro in the second round. He is supported by the Partido de la U and five smaller parties. He is the candidate of the Aguilar clan, the controversial clan led by convicted parapolítico and former governor Hugo Aguilar (the former police colonel who claims to have been the one who killed Pablo Escobar in 1993) which has elected three governors in Santander since 2003 (Hugo in 2003 and his sons Richard in 2011 and Mauricio in 2019). The Aguilar clan is weakened by the criminal cases against Richard Aguilar for a corruption scheme in public contracts, but remains a powerful political machine. Regional newspaper Vanguardia revealed how senior officials in governor Mauricio Aguilar’s administration are favouring Mantilla, pressuring employees and contract workers to support Mantilla’s campaign. Mantilla is also supported by former departmental comptroller Fredy Anaya, a controversial corrupt politician-entrepreneur known for using public institutions as personal bureaucratic ‘fortresses’ and giving contracts to friends and family.
‘Profe’ Ferley Sierra, a departmental assembly member since 2019, is the Green candidate, known for his viral and sensationalist social media videos and posts denouncing corruption and political rivals. He is a former ally and supporter of the famous ‘YouTuber senator’ Jota Pe Hernández, but the senator is not supporting any candidates (besides calling on people to vote against Petro’s candidates). ‘Profe’ Ferley has focused his ire on Juvenal Díaz and Mantilla, and had a run-in with Juvenal Díaz before a debate.
There are five other candidates with little support, including the Pacto’s candidate, although the Pacto was understood to be implicitly supporting Rodolfo.
Cundinamarca
In Cundinamarca, the department which surrounds Bogotá, the election is a repeat of 2015 in terms of both the leading candidates (Jorge Rey and Nancy Patrica Gutiérrez) and the prohibitive favourite (Jorge Rey).
Jorge Rey, the former governor (2016-2019), is likely to win a second term as governor by a solid margin. Rey has become the leading political boss of Cundinamarca since 2015, retaining power through his ally Nicolás García, who succeeded him in 2019. Rey has been accused of being part of a land flipping cartel—changing land use designations from rural to urban by bribing councillors and environmental authority officials, increase land value and benefiting third parties (real estate developers who contributed generously to his campaign). Rey has defended himself against these claims, saying that he has no disciplinary or criminal investigations. Rey has a formidable mega-coalition of 13 parties behind him, including the Liberals, Conservatives, CR, La U, ASI, MAIS and Creemos.
As in 2015, his main rival is the uribista candidate, Nancy Patricia Gutiérrez. Eight years ago, Rey won by over 17 points. Gutiérrez is a veteran politician who served twelve years in Congress and held the presidency of both the lower and upper houses during her terms. She was investigated for parapolítica and influence peddling, but both cases were closed by 2014. She was Iván Duque’s interior minister from 2018 to February 2020, but she was demoted to presidential advisor for human rights in 2020 for her difficulties in managing the administration’s political agenda in Congress in 2018-19. While she is the candidate of the CD, not all the uribista bases are with her: CD senator Yenny Rozo, from the political group of former Mosquera mayor Álvaro Rozo (known for his role in the controversial business dealings of Álvaro Uribe’s sons), is supporting Rey.
The Pacto’s candidate is Liliana García and there are five other candidates, including former congressman Alfredo Molina (Nuevo Liberalismo-En Marcha) and former departmental comptroller Ricardo López Arévalo (Liga).
Rey is the clear favourite to win, consolidating his power as the political boss of Cundinamarca.
Final words
This post is already long enough but remains only an incomplete preview of over 1,100 separate elections in municipalities and departments across Colombia. There are many other interesting and important mayoral and gubernatorial races (as well as very important council elections in major cities), but these are the most high-profile races in the largest cities and departments.
For more information, you can look at La Silla Vacía’s extensive reporting on these elections including their profiles of hundreds of candidates for mayor, governor and city council in 13 departments.
The results will be reported tomorrow by the Registraduría. Follow their website here.
I’ll be back after the elections with analysis of the results.